Dear LFS Community members,
I have not been able to easily browse the forum recently (you'll see why below) and Victor has let me know that there has been some unease in the community due to my absence.
The reason why is because of something I did not tell you before, and that is that Geraldine and I have moved house. Our old house was too small to work in now that we have a small child and a baby. One downstairs room was used as my office and the other was used for everything else - sitting room, play room and dining room of sorts. At this stage we really needed to have a dining table instead of sitting at a coffee table in the living room, so it was time to move. Actually that has been the case for a long time but finally we found the house we wanted, so we decided to take the opportunity and make the move. We managed to get in just before Christmas with a minimal amount of stuff so that was very nice for us and it's really great to have some space instead of being 4 people and two cats crammed into such a small house.
That's all good news so far... and we are very happy in our new home, but sorting it out has taken longer than expected, as with many things, including LFS development, there are a lot of unforeseen issues that take a lot of time to sort out.
Anyway, to get to the point, I expected to be back on LFS full time in mid-January, but I'd say now it would be mid-February before I can be totally on the case again. The main reason for that is the actual reality of packing and moving and changing addresses and finding places for things and hanging things on walls etc, etc... as anyone who has moved house will know.
I'd also like to relay to you another problem that has taken up some of my time and definitely kept me off the forums to some extent, and that is the incompetence of BT and Virgin media, who have let me down in their attempts, or lack of attempts, to provide me with a broadband service.
I feel it is fair to mention how both of these companies have let me down quite significantly. Originally, in mid-December, I ordered phone + broadband from BT. What I actually got was just the phone line. Something looked wrong as things were not happening as BT had said they would, but customer services informed me that everything was 100% OK with my order. They only believed that something was wrong when my activation date had passed and I had no equipment and no broadband activation. Unbelievably they also lost all record that I had orginally ordered broadband at all! So, after half a day of phone calls to various BT customer service centres, I finally realised that I had really vanished from their system.
Naturally I turned to another ISP at this point, and why not Virgin Media who had served me very well with a cable service in Twickenham? I made my order which would be activated in 7 to 10 days. Amazingly, once again, I was served with a wall of silence. None of the promised emails, text messages and letters informing me of the progress. Even more amazingly, when phoning customer services a few times, I was informed that my order was proceeding as planned. Total disregard for the fact that I told them I was not receiving any of the progress reports and the order tracker was reporting a fault. Anyway, once the activation date had passed, Virgin Media finally admitted there was a problem, and it had supposedly been due to someone entering my old address with my new phone number. I was told the only way forward was to order again and wait at the back of the queue for 7 to 10 days again. Well... guess what I'm going to tell you now... it failed again! Once again, this second Virgin order "errored" at an early stage, once again I got no emails and texts and letters, once again customer services reported that they were 100% certain that the order was progressing as planned. And once again, it was when my activation date had passed that they finally agreed there was a problem. And only now could someone actually report what the problem was...
Now for the technical bit - there is something called a "tag line" that Virgin (or any other ISP) can use to connect a phone to an ADSL service. But "BT Wholesale" (who have a monopoly on phone lines except in cabled areas) had only got the first part of my post code down in the tag line. Of course Virgin were trying to connect using my whole post code. Anyway, yesterday I spent 6 hours phoning around. As Virgin were referring me to BT to sort out this "BT" problem. Only problem is, it's not possible for a customer to phone BT Wholesale. You cannot get the phone number and if you could, they would not talk to you anyway unless you are an ISP. Virgin kept referring me back to "BT Retail" but that was ridiculous, BT Retail informed me they are just another ISP like Virgin, and could not sort out the problem of another ISP! Back and forth I went, each company telling me that the other was the one to sort it out. Finally I had to contact the regulating authority, Ofcom. Ofcom quickly contacted Virgin Media head office and they got in touch with me quickly, to their credit. But even then I was informed that I had to contact BT Retail! It's quite incredible that Virgin Media don't believe that they can actually contact BT Wholesale to sort out a problem. Anyway within an hour the postcode problem, that had been discovered about 6 hours earlier, was finally resolved, when Virgin decided to "take a chance" and contact BT Wholesale. But to make this happen I actually had to tell them that I had two small children who have no curtains because I've been unable to do the necessary internet research, and have delayed using alternative methods to find curtains, etc, because I have been continually told that I would have internet within a few days.
Quite an unbelievable story I guess you will agree. I thought I should relay that to you - it's my duty to British people to report what I have gone through trying to get a connection. What bothers me is not that there was a technical problem or a typo. It's just quite sickening that they could keep saying to me that everything was fine, instead of admitting there was an issue and actually finding out what that problem was. Unfortunately I still have no connection, but now the root problem is apparently solved, it should be possible to get connected. I need to get on the phone again on Monday to see what is the way forward, and if I need to re-order again and wait another 7 to 10 days, or if they can do something more quickly. One thing to note is that my neighbours have broadband - I would not have moved into a house where broadband was not available! So don't worry, there is no possibility that I will not be able to get a connection eventually.
Anyway, that has affected my browsing and kept me away from the forums, but actually it has not been the main reason why I have not continued my side of LFS development so far this year. Even with dial-up I would be able to upload test patches for the community or get the Scirocco finished with the beta testers. I've just been sorting things out and there aren't all that many boxes lying around any more, my office is basically set up and waiting for the connection. There's still a bit more to do here before I get right back into LFS full time work, but as I said, I expect to be on the case in two weeks or so, getting that Scirocco sorted out and continuing with other things we will be releasing this year.
Thank you for your patience!
Scawen
I have not been able to easily browse the forum recently (you'll see why below) and Victor has let me know that there has been some unease in the community due to my absence.
The reason why is because of something I did not tell you before, and that is that Geraldine and I have moved house. Our old house was too small to work in now that we have a small child and a baby. One downstairs room was used as my office and the other was used for everything else - sitting room, play room and dining room of sorts. At this stage we really needed to have a dining table instead of sitting at a coffee table in the living room, so it was time to move. Actually that has been the case for a long time but finally we found the house we wanted, so we decided to take the opportunity and make the move. We managed to get in just before Christmas with a minimal amount of stuff so that was very nice for us and it's really great to have some space instead of being 4 people and two cats crammed into such a small house.
That's all good news so far... and we are very happy in our new home, but sorting it out has taken longer than expected, as with many things, including LFS development, there are a lot of unforeseen issues that take a lot of time to sort out.
Anyway, to get to the point, I expected to be back on LFS full time in mid-January, but I'd say now it would be mid-February before I can be totally on the case again. The main reason for that is the actual reality of packing and moving and changing addresses and finding places for things and hanging things on walls etc, etc... as anyone who has moved house will know.
I'd also like to relay to you another problem that has taken up some of my time and definitely kept me off the forums to some extent, and that is the incompetence of BT and Virgin media, who have let me down in their attempts, or lack of attempts, to provide me with a broadband service.
I feel it is fair to mention how both of these companies have let me down quite significantly. Originally, in mid-December, I ordered phone + broadband from BT. What I actually got was just the phone line. Something looked wrong as things were not happening as BT had said they would, but customer services informed me that everything was 100% OK with my order. They only believed that something was wrong when my activation date had passed and I had no equipment and no broadband activation. Unbelievably they also lost all record that I had orginally ordered broadband at all! So, after half a day of phone calls to various BT customer service centres, I finally realised that I had really vanished from their system.
Naturally I turned to another ISP at this point, and why not Virgin Media who had served me very well with a cable service in Twickenham? I made my order which would be activated in 7 to 10 days. Amazingly, once again, I was served with a wall of silence. None of the promised emails, text messages and letters informing me of the progress. Even more amazingly, when phoning customer services a few times, I was informed that my order was proceeding as planned. Total disregard for the fact that I told them I was not receiving any of the progress reports and the order tracker was reporting a fault. Anyway, once the activation date had passed, Virgin Media finally admitted there was a problem, and it had supposedly been due to someone entering my old address with my new phone number. I was told the only way forward was to order again and wait at the back of the queue for 7 to 10 days again. Well... guess what I'm going to tell you now... it failed again! Once again, this second Virgin order "errored" at an early stage, once again I got no emails and texts and letters, once again customer services reported that they were 100% certain that the order was progressing as planned. And once again, it was when my activation date had passed that they finally agreed there was a problem. And only now could someone actually report what the problem was...
Now for the technical bit - there is something called a "tag line" that Virgin (or any other ISP) can use to connect a phone to an ADSL service. But "BT Wholesale" (who have a monopoly on phone lines except in cabled areas) had only got the first part of my post code down in the tag line. Of course Virgin were trying to connect using my whole post code. Anyway, yesterday I spent 6 hours phoning around. As Virgin were referring me to BT to sort out this "BT" problem. Only problem is, it's not possible for a customer to phone BT Wholesale. You cannot get the phone number and if you could, they would not talk to you anyway unless you are an ISP. Virgin kept referring me back to "BT Retail" but that was ridiculous, BT Retail informed me they are just another ISP like Virgin, and could not sort out the problem of another ISP! Back and forth I went, each company telling me that the other was the one to sort it out. Finally I had to contact the regulating authority, Ofcom. Ofcom quickly contacted Virgin Media head office and they got in touch with me quickly, to their credit. But even then I was informed that I had to contact BT Retail! It's quite incredible that Virgin Media don't believe that they can actually contact BT Wholesale to sort out a problem. Anyway within an hour the postcode problem, that had been discovered about 6 hours earlier, was finally resolved, when Virgin decided to "take a chance" and contact BT Wholesale. But to make this happen I actually had to tell them that I had two small children who have no curtains because I've been unable to do the necessary internet research, and have delayed using alternative methods to find curtains, etc, because I have been continually told that I would have internet within a few days.
Quite an unbelievable story I guess you will agree. I thought I should relay that to you - it's my duty to British people to report what I have gone through trying to get a connection. What bothers me is not that there was a technical problem or a typo. It's just quite sickening that they could keep saying to me that everything was fine, instead of admitting there was an issue and actually finding out what that problem was. Unfortunately I still have no connection, but now the root problem is apparently solved, it should be possible to get connected. I need to get on the phone again on Monday to see what is the way forward, and if I need to re-order again and wait another 7 to 10 days, or if they can do something more quickly. One thing to note is that my neighbours have broadband - I would not have moved into a house where broadband was not available! So don't worry, there is no possibility that I will not be able to get a connection eventually.
Anyway, that has affected my browsing and kept me away from the forums, but actually it has not been the main reason why I have not continued my side of LFS development so far this year. Even with dial-up I would be able to upload test patches for the community or get the Scirocco finished with the beta testers. I've just been sorting things out and there aren't all that many boxes lying around any more, my office is basically set up and waiting for the connection. There's still a bit more to do here before I get right back into LFS full time work, but as I said, I expect to be on the case in two weeks or so, getting that Scirocco sorted out and continuing with other things we will be releasing this year.
Thank you for your patience!
Scawen
